The Best of Times.

There are times of the year when my spirit soars.

One such time is the leading edge of April, the very cusp of spring where everything in the world seems to hesitate with breathless anticipation, a fragrant riot of green bursting forth from every crack and crevice of creation. Then there's the finale of fall; the air crisp and heavy with the smell of approaching winter, a few rusty brown and yellow leaves still clinging hopefully to the bare scratched knuckles of the hardwoods, only to be blown off by the autumn wind to meet a final crunchy, satisfying end in the middle of a laughing child's oft rebuilt mound of jumping leaves.

Frosty, grey winter days spent indoors watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and drinking hot chocolate.

Soft summer nights overflowing with stars and stolen kisses and whispers, broken hearts and tears unthought of, undreamed of, unmentioned.

Beautiful, bittersweet, bountiful times; each of them carving out a special place in the increasingly crowded corridors of my heart.

But even the most cherished autumn, even the liveliest spring and most haunting winter will never hold a candle to the greatest season of all. The fifth season. The special time of the year that we are currently occupying, wrenchingly short, incredibly sweet.

Yes. You guessed it. Girl Scout Cookie Season.

Oh Thin Mints! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways! Your scent, hovering sprite like above the green of your cardboard carton is a delightful tease, hinting at wonders to come. Your silky, milky chocolate skin is a vision in ebony; black and mysterious. Your delicate crunch is a promise fufilled; demure and delectable. Your chocolate graham interior is an exercise in taste bud titillation...scrumptually sumptuous.

And above it all, floating angelic like the final glowing notes of a master symphony in an empty concert hall...is the mint. Thin as promised, no more than a good dream half remembered, gone before breakfast but still living somewhere deep in the murky electricity of the mind, perhaps to be recalled days, weeks, years later in an elevator or on the interstate or while walking the dog, bringing with it a rush of nostalgia and a slow, growing, crooked smile that no one else understands.

To taste heaven in a cookie! Ah...Canaan revealed!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I like Thin Mints. A lot.

I don't have a problem. I have a passion. And my passion just happens to arrive in a green box with a carefully chosen ethnically diverse mix of rope climbing girl scouts on it. So be it.

--A--